- If you were to start listening to Stella Donnelly’s EP, Thrush Metal from the wrong end, you might get quite a different impression of her than what I started with. Songs like Grey and A Poem are breezy, jazzy, folky, singer-songwriter fare, which fit quite snugly and pleasantly among the current crop, from Angharad Drake to Tash Sultana; I suppose.

The EP’s opening cut and first single, Mechanical Bull, is something else entirely. The acoustic guitar’s angular jabs sound passive aggressive, like they should be slashed out on an electric full of roaring distortion. The lyrics are inflamatory at first, before they start landing like punches: “I’ll be your dar-ling, tits, legs, honey sweetpea / But I’m a fuck-ing arsehole if you ask me / I need to be alone / You’ve been at my throat.” It’s actually about Donnelly’s experiences with drunken assholes, working at a pub - but as you heard, there’s quite an amount of inner turmoil, pointedly, unflinchingly observed. It builds to a harassed peak, Donnelly’s voice is bright and kinda big and she pushes it to its limits; probably a bit beyond to be honest. Hearing all of that I thought I was listening to a younger, more energetic Sarah Mary Chadwick. At every stage though, the stylistic inflections Donnelly chooses make you reconsider what exactly it is she does.

You may have heard the bands Donnelly plays with around Perth: Boat Show and Bells Rapids. They’re quite different from her solo stuff, both mainlining a variety of ‘90’s influences, from Liz Phair to Bikini Kill. Back with the EP, I doubt I’ll hear a more confronting track two this year: track twos are usually reliably drab and safe! By conrast Boys Will Be Boys starts in the style of an acoustic lullaby, but the lyrics are, again, finely, carefully picked out to reveal an absolutely brutal anti-rape anthem. Anthem it is, too: Donnelly’s voice soars through the chorus, bright, powerful but brittle, tired and husky too, the vibrato spinning slightly off-kilter. An astonishing contrast. This is powerfully heartbreaking stuff.

Mean To Me starts the push into more jazzy territory: a coy, six-eight crooner. The lyrics are the bridge from the incendiary beginnings of the EP, complicating the traditional lovey-dovey stuff with a deliberately awkward and honest examination of a relationship. Since we're being honest, I was expecting it to launch at any moment into a big Gwen Stefani rocker, revelling in  the cheesy emotional payoff of thundering guitars and giving the boy a big middle finger. Instead, Donnelly pursues the sweetly uneasy croon to its conclusion, which is more real I suppose and certainly a sophisticated pleasure, if it’s a pleasure at all.

The journey into sweet and slightly ethereal jazz-folk in the back half of the EP feels...almost unreal after the corrosive acid of its openings. Actually, I appreciate it all but, wow, what a lot of territory covered in a little EP. This may be trite or even offensive, but Stella Donnelly’s work seems like the story of women in society today: so many different things jostling together - sometimes sweet, but sometimes sharply lacerating. As with the rapid changes tearing through the fabric of contemporary society, I wonder where it’s all going. In the case of the world and Stella Donnelly both, I’m cautiously keen to find out.

- Chris Cobcroft.